My favorite way to buy music is still on CD, particularly used CDs. CDs were the first essentially perfect way to distribute music. They may be the last way to really own it. As long as I own that disc, I can use the music on any device that exists now or in the future. I can make as many copies as I like. I can sell or give the disc away, and nobody can do a damn thing about it.
So three or four times a year I go over to SecondSpin.com and load up on cheap CDs. Some of the CDs I love the most sell for a few dollars each. Here are six of my favorites you can get for $4 or less:
So three or four times a year I go over to SecondSpin.com and load up on cheap CDs. Some of the CDs I love the most sell for a few dollars each. Here are six of my favorites you can get for $4 or less:
- Dwight Yoakam, This Time $2 This is, without question, the perfect country music album. For just $5 more, you can add Gone, which is also the perfect country album.
- Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers $3 You're may be sick of the big hit from this album (Stacey's Mom), but every track is great.
- Kim Richey, Bitter Sweet $4 There usually aren't many used Kim Richey CDs out there. They are all fantastic - this is one of her most thoughtful and touching albums.
- Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road $4 Great southern rock / folk. The title song makes me feel like I'm about 5 years old, back in the South around 1970. But it's good.
- Joan Osborne, Relish $2 This is another album with one huge hit (I won't name it). It must have sold millions of copies, because used discs are cheap as dirt. Personally, I like all the songs here - each one tells a story.
- Sonia Dada, Day at the Beach $2 One reviewer calls this an "amalgamation of soul, pop, rock, blues, and gospel." That's about right. Call it what you will, it's great poetry set to great music. For less than $20, you could pick up all six Sonia Dada albums. An ex-girlfriend turned me onto this band ... so every cloud does have a silver lining.